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If we are to accept the evidence concerning the Shroud, and thousands do, we should recognize that it is science and history confronting and challenging the prevailing worldview that unnatural things don't happen. For those who are scientifically inclined, it may seem like an Alice in Wonderland nightmare.
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Some of the material in this essay is obsolete. Please refer to the The Searching for Sister Ann's Bishop Who Thinks Ann is Nuts An Episcopalian's Perspective -- AN ONLINE ESSAY -- By Daniel R. Porter |
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Part 7: Acceptance If we are to accept the evidence concerning the Shroud, and thousands do, we should recognize that it is science and history confronting and challenging the prevailing worldview that unnatural things don't happen. For those who are scientifically inclined, it may seem like an Alice in Wonderland nightmare - science against science and history against history. The evidence seems to give credence to the "the postmodern contention" - as historian Joseph Ellis jokingly describes postmodernism - "that no such thing as objective truth exists, that historical reality is an inherently enigmatic and endlessly negotiable bundle of free-floating perceptions.7" The Shroud is important because it challenges what we may believe about the resurrection. It challenges extant historical and biblical scholarship. It challenges two centuries of historical and theological progress in the scholarly "quest" for the historical Jesus. It challenges the discourse on science and religion. And as Pope John Paul II states - a man keenly aware of intellectual dilemma - the Shroud of Turin "challenges our intelligence." To ignore the Shroud, once given the opportunity to comprehend it, seems wrong. Admittedly, it is difficult to approach a study of the Shroud free of our religious (including anti-religious), scientific and cultural biases. But in doing so, we may seek new ways of knowing about Christ. Whether we believe that the Shroud is real or not, understanding it exposes us to think anew - and in new ways - about the passion story, the crucifixion and the resurrection. If in the recognition of the face and hands and feet and all the other wounds [on the Shroud], we, like those who knew Him best, are led to say, "It is the Lord!", then perhaps we may have to learn to count ourselves also among those who have "seen and believed." But that, as St. John makes clear, brings with it no special blessing - rather special responsibility. - Dr. John A. T. Robinson Thomas Cahill in Desires of the Everlasting Hills illustrates this thinking as he describes what can be seen on the Shroud. He wrote: ... One sees a muscular, barrel-chested, we'll-proportioned man, pierced in wrists, feet, and side, the eyes of this haunting Semitic face closed in death. The Shroud image, however it was made, is a genuine negative ... Though corpses laid to rest on cloth may leave smudged impressions with which a forensic pathologist could discern, they cannot leave exactly proportioned images of themselves. We must look elsewhere for an explanation. But if we assume that the Shroud is a clever medieval forgery, we must assume that it was made by an artist whose grasp of the negative-positive properties of photography was five centuries in advance of his time and whose understanding of anatomy was far in advance of that of all medieval contemporaries. Such a theory, however, falls apart after a careful look at the negative. Every artist, especially one as facile as the Shroud artist would have had to have been, is identifiable by his style, which is as characteristic of him as his signature or thumbprint. The negative image has no style whatever; there is no hand in to. It seems obviously a photograph, that is, an image made by light. A medieval forger would also need to have been the only human being between the time of the emperor Constantine and our own to have been completely conversant with the details of Roman crucifixion. Before his crucifixion, the man on the Shroud was stripped naked and scourged over his whole body, the scourge marks especially visible on chest and back. The scourging was performed by two men of unequal height, standing in front and back of the prisoner, and was affected by whips, which the Romans called flagri, to the ends of which were affixed small metal dumbbells. He received a blow of great impact across his right cheek, which caused considerable swelling below the eye and some displacement on the nose. The puncture wounds all around his head suggests that he was made to wear a cap or helmet of sharp, spiky objects. He was also made to carry for some time something rough and heavy across his shoulders. He seems to have fallen, perhaps more than once, abrading knees and nose. The nails of his crucifixion - actually spikes about a foot long - were driven through his wrists and feet. He died in agony, as do all victims hung in crucifixion, after hours of gradual suffocation and loss of blood. Soon after his death, his left side was pierced by an elliptical object, apparently aimed at his heart. From this wound, blood flowed copiously, collecting in pools at the small of the back and spreading across the cloth ... What else must be understood? There is a story of cloth, flowers, and dirt. There is history from Spain, from an ancient Christian community in Edessa, and from the world of icons and Byzantine coins. There are the puzzling characteristics of negativity, three dimensionality, chemistry and physics. There is amazing detail of what is on the Shroud as forensic pathologists see it. We must ask, too, if we wish to understand the Shroud: how were the images formed?
7 The quote by Joseph Ellis is from Founding Brothers: the Revolutionary Generation. It has nothing to do with the Shroud of Turin but illustrates how some historians view postmodernism. A better and more hopeful definition for postmodernism is provided by the Rev. Canon Frank Harron II, former vicar of Washington National Cathedral and now scholar-in-residence at Trinity Episcopal Church Wall Street, in New York City. It is the best definition I have found: "The postmodern understanding of the way we determine truth joyfully shares personal perspectives. Truth is not separate from the person. Authenticity is a criterion of validity. Diversity and complexity are welcomed, indeed required. Truth is now always from the standpoint of individuals. The truth we can know is always approximate, tentative, provisional, learned from ourselves and from one another. It is dynamic and can come from expected and unexpected places." Dan Porter is an Episcopalian and a member of Trinity Church, Wall Street, in New York City. He may be contacted by email at porter@shroudstory.com or by mail at 20 McIntyre Street, Bronxville, NY 10708. (c) Copyright 2001, Daniel R. Porter. All Rights Reserved. This article may be reproduced in full for any non-commercial purpose without further permission.
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